I’ve learned not to escalate things and flip people off, yell back. Especially here in the states with lots of guns, minor altercations can easily escalate to dangerous situations. Don’t ask me how I know.
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Some Police in England are, Police Scotland have no video reporting system and have stated several times that they are not going too. The police in my area of England were pretty inept too when I submitted video in the past, hopefully they’ve been dragged into the 21st century and improved.
In the last 7 years since I ditched my camera for a Garmin Varia Ive only had 1 bad incident I will fester on and that was on a day I was in a rush and forgot to turn the Varia on.
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That really sucks!
Yeah, the local driving culture has a huge impact. I haven’t been honked at in years as I spent a lot of time in Japan. Near Berlin drivers are less, hmmm, measured, and plenty of people honked at me even though they could freely overtake me. Plus, I was doing 35–43 km/h (the roads here are super flat), so I wasn’t going super slow either.
This sort of thing is common place. Luckily I’m quite thick skinned, so I usually just smile and carry on with my ride. Don’t let grumpy people ruin your fun 
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Not when they’re looking/ watching their phone they don’t!
++++1
Segregation works against good people in the long haul. We need the idiots exposing their bad behaviour so it can be corrected.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s shocking and dangerous. But keep on riding is my advice, report it if you can but don’t expect results, just do your bit for all our sakes, and our children.
I believe cycling is getting better everywhere, and I think of what past generations had to put up with to get us this far.
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I’m trying to do better about not escalating things. I have zero problem with road rage while driving a vehicle, but after an hour on the bike, my middle fingers get twitchy. I live in the SE U.S., and really haven’t had too many issues with intentional bad behavior, but every driver is potentially armed and ready to “stand their ground”. I remind myself there’s no point in letting a driver’s mistake turn into me getting shot.
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Anytime someone yells at me “CANT” I yell back “yes I CAN!”
But seriously, sorry it happens but it’s not just cycling related. Turds exist in all facets of life. All you can do is decide what to do with what you can control.
UK resident, commute, club and solo rides.
Unfortunately from the OP’s narrative, their experience of other UK road users is not an outlier. Contrast the UK with Mallorca and its night and day. I’d love to understand what makes the difference between the two populations but hey, it makes for an interesting pub conversation post ride where the UK population of car drivers doesn’t come too well.
Despite the questionable behaviour of other road users I won’t let others define what I do. Some in the cycling club ride with front and rear cameras and some footage has found its way to the local police portal for crimes recorded by dashcam. It’s early days yet to see a judicial outcome, but at least it’s a start.
Instead of the middle finger, I like a thumbs down and a loud “boooo”. Takes them by suprise 
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A large part of it is down to Affinity. More folk in areas/countries that are welcoming to know a person who is a cyclist, or cycle themselves, so people on bikes are seen less of an outgroup. Its closet racism (dislike of anything different) in the haters.
Ah, sorry that happened. I love riding outside so much it’d take an army of assonauts in their 3,000lb guided missiles to keep me in the house. I think once you’re scared it’s a self fulfilling prophecy might be best for your sanity to stick to being inside.
I lived in the UK for a few years and didn’t have any bad interactions with drivers, that I can recall. It’s the opposite for pedestrians we found. You guys are twats to people walking over there. Then again, I very rarely have bad interactions here in the states either. I can recall a couple and some are even comical. But for the most part I remember a sky so blue and clear it put a lump in my throat. I can remember an early morning commute as I went up a longer gradual climb into the sun as it was rising. Just tempo breathing and the ticking over of the pedals…while the sun slowly rose and glowed energy into me. I’m not religious, but that felt like God making the sun come up just for me. NOBODY will take that away from me. Nobody.
Never let assholes win.
Take care…
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The automotive market in the US is worth around $1 trillion dollars as of 2024. Imagine if that was reduced by just 10% by installing bike lanes and creating laws and culture that promote safety and freedom of (nearly free) travel via bicycles. That’s $100 billion in lost revenue, as well as 1000’s of jobs, plus tax revenue that goes to the state, local, and federal government. Imagine if it went down by 20%, or $200 billion?
There is ZERO benefit for the government, or the industry in general, to support this move, and only INCENTIVE to increase the messaging that bicycles and cyclists do not belong, and that you must drive a car everywhere. Until this changes, it will only get worse.
You sure it was directed at you and they weren’t just swearing at the other driver on wrong side of road?
Proper bicycle infrastructure makes car driving safer and easier too…because there are no/less bikes on the road…
There is also a large benefit to all industry to have a healthy, happy workforce, and safe cycling can contribute to that.
I can think of a few reasons why government is interested.
- Reduce traffic fatalities. Sweden famously has the goal of getting to zero traffic fatalities.
- Reduce congestion, especially in urban centers. If you have ever driven in a big city, you know it is not, hmmm, fun. Fewer cars means more space for the cars that do drive.
- Lower pollution, especially in urban areas, which has a lot of direct and indirect costs.
- More people cycling means a healthier population, which could save billions and billions in the medical system.
This is just from the top of my head.
Pollution is paid for through carbon taxes, taxes that governments would rather collect than see an actual improvement in pollution. In some cities, congestion is merely a means to sell more toll roads to infinitely collect more road tax. Traffic fatalities increase congestion, which improves the public sentiment for adding toll roads, and more road taxes. Local municipalities responsible construction of the roads don’t pay for healthcare either, in fact having larger healthcare facilities and more spending on health issues in their city means more revenue!
Japan started a national campaign to increase the consumption of alcohol. Let’s not believe that any government actually wants to improve our health. Japan urges its young people to drink more to boost economy (bbc.com)
Houston, TX is one of the least safe and most pedestrian unfriendly cities in the US. Their own cycling website has dead links and the local government has done nothing but stifle pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Trust me, nobody at the top in Houston cares if cyclists die or have access to any recreation outdoors. Houston Bikeways – All things biking in Houston (houstonbikeplan.org)
Until there’s real financial incentive to do it, it will never happen.
OP isn’t in Houston, he’s in UK where there are plenty of households who don’t have a car, plenty of people getting to work on bike, foot or public transport, and a lot of cities have implemented low traffic zones, 20mph zones, and are building bike infrastructure (much of it not very good, but that’s a different conversation!). Nearly all our car manufacturers have been sold off or gone bust. There have actually been more bikes than cars sold in the UK in recent years (though possible that’s a relatively small number of people following the N+1 rule…).
It’s certainly not the government pushing an anti-cyclist agenda here. There may well be a degree to which the media is promoting a bike vs car narrative - certainly plenty of clickbait articles every time a cyclist causes an accident, with the usual flurry of comments underneath about red light jumping, lack of insurance, should have number plates, don’t pay tax, etc.
I think it’s more that there are just a lot of generally angry, entitled or impatient people in cars out there. It’s not like they’re swearing at cyclists and then being nice to all the other road users, there’s a significant minority round here who speed down residential streets, never let anybody out, never ease up to let a pedestrian cross, lean on the horn at the slightest aggravation, etc. Maybe it’s some combo of Brexit, Covid, the economy, the potholes, the congestion, the strain of suppressing their secret jealousy of how great we look in lycra, or the breakdown of society as we know it thanks to social media. Or maybe there’s just a disproportionately high number of a***holes living in parts of UK and particularly in SE England. I think it may well be the latter, as whenever I go to quieter and friendlier parts of UK and elsewhere (including Mallorca) people are just generally nicer and more considerate both behind the wheel and everywhere else you encounter them.
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In the UK though, where the OP instance happened, there a massive benefit to the UK government with fitter healthier people being less of a burden on the NHS and paying more taxes (actually the latter must be a benefit on the US too). Overall in the UK a cycling scheme outweighs a road scheme on Cost to Benefit ratio by 10 times. Beyond the simple CBR there’s also massive environmental gains to be had by promoting sustainable travel.
I’ve done the same this year.
I set myself a challenge of running an ultra marathon as I sick and tired of all the times I’ve been driven at while riding where I live in the North Cotswolds. I’m sure since lockdown driver’s attitudes are worse and the constant winding up of drivers in the Daily Mail and Telegraph is making things worse.
Ive explored more local trails on 2 feet than I thought was possible and completed that ultra. I still compete in Triathlons on the roads but do 95% of my training rides indoors now. I’m going to explore cyclocross for the winter to keep the edge of riding with others off the roads. Drivers have ruined cycling for me